Established readers : this is one of many reposted articles you will see in the coming months.  It is part of the redesign process.  I hope you agree that all of these articles are worth another look!

Today, I ran across this article discussing the continuing efforts of Chinese researchers to modernize TCM. The main point in the article, along with several articles like it, is that Chinese medicine must modernize in order to be viable in the 21st century.  Certainly not the first time in Chinese medicine’s history that this argument has been made.

Modernization is supposed to progress on two fronts, according to this class of arguments.

First, modernization means safety through tighter regulation of herbal products and tougher licensing standards for practitioners.  Second, modernization means adopting rigorous materialist worldview based testing of treatments with the eventual goal of reshaping the medicine as a whole to come into line with that materialist worldview.

Regarding the first, modernizing for safety, I can respect this.  In any profession there are dangers, and in any situation there are people willing to forge ahead regardless of dangers.   If tighter government regulation truly means that practitioners and patients will be less likely to get herbs tainted with pesticides, herbicides and heavy metals – I’m all for it.

Of course, some companies – like Spring Wind herbs out of California – have already taken it upon themselves to address this problem.  With proper education & promotion, companies like Spring Wind can become the favored choice among practitioners.  I would like to believe that necessary education need only focus on the potential dangers of unscrupulously grown & processed herbs.  This could easily be accomplished by schools of Chinese medicine as well as professional societies like AAAOM.  Assuming everyone is aware of the dangers of tainted herbs, and assuming there are ample sources of alternatives, this may be one of those cases where market forces can be a more potent regulator than the government.

With regards to licensing standards – another potential guarantor of safety – they should definitely exist. Everyone seeking to practice as a Chinese medicine physician should be expected to have a certain amount of theoretical and clinical education as well as basic training in rescue medicine and doctor-patient relationships. That being said, the exact composition of that educational mix should be left to a governing body composed of experienced Chinese medicine practitioners.

But what about the second aspect of this kind of modernization?

Should Chinese medicine as a profession be increasingly required to engage in rigorous testing with the currently accepted methods of common laboratory science?

Chinese medicine is not based on a materialist worldview, which dominates the landscape of modern laboratory science.  Further, it resists simple either/or cause/effect analysis. Chinese medicine seeks to honor the complexity of the human being as well as the therapies being used to address problems the human being is experiencing.  In other words, the whole lifeworld of the patient, the practitioner AND the substances or tools being used in therapy are brought to bear in each treatment.  In a general way, abstracting any of these pieces away for separate and isolated analysis is likely to result in failure to recognize the real impact of the medicine.

In contrast, a more Western materialist way of looking at medicine requires the ability to make either/or & cause/effect judgments.  It discards the natural variations in patient, practitioner and substance/tool.  In fact, experiments that do not adequately control for those variables are considered to be inferior, or simply invalid.  One cannot put up one’s nose at the many positive benefits of this type of measured, exacting research.  It demonstrates for us very simple, replicable, reliable things.  If one gathers enough of these simple pieces, a very complex system might be understood.  However, the method tends to fall short when trying to verify the complex reactions of complex human beings being administered to in complex ways.

Simply, the Western materialist system doesn’t resonate with the basic principles of Chinese medicine.  This DOES NOT mean that nothing is regular, replicable or verifiable in Chinese medicine.  To the contrary!  Ma Huang will make almost everyone sweat when in the right formula at the right time. A red tongue almost always indicates heat in the body, which can be treated in one or more fairly regular, teachable ways.  These principles are just as fixed, just as replicable as any in Western medicine.

That’s why it needs skilled, deeply educated practitioners that aren’t busy trying to isolate compounds from Yang tonifying herbs to act as a competitor for Viagra.

It needs practitioners who spend their time reading the classics, refining their diagnostic and treatment techniques, dwelling on the qualities of nature and working on their own self-cultivation.

Changing the way herbs are processed, making sure that doctors are trained, holding ourselves to high standards of cleanliness and propriety – all of these things are boons of modernization and I welcome them with open arms. But we simply must not allow the incessant drumbeat of scientific materialism to tell us how our medicine must dance.

We can exist side by side, treating what we treat best. A world in which Classical Chinese Medicine and Western medicine both seek to serve patients and not ideological or political masters would be a beautiful world indeed.

Most of all, I want to sell them – US – on the amazing potential of technology in general, and the Internet in particular. This is ironic, of course, because most of them won’t read this.

Why? Oh god, why? I don’t know. It seems that among natural medicine practitioners, those most likely to embrace the Internet sell mostly herbal Viagra-type products or are chiefly interested in weight loss. It’s a crying shame, my friends. A crying shame.

I will put my call out there, though, in hopes that it will reach the ears of some of my colleagues. To make it easy on the eyes I will keep it short and digestible. Without further ado – I present my Top 5 Reasons Natural Medicine practitioners (and students, and consumers!) need to embrace the Internet.

1. Ease of delivery of information. This is the same reason it is advocated for any sector of society. If you have information you need to get out there (and who doesn’t?) the Internet is a cheap, effective and efficient way of getting it out there. With blogging software, wiki creation programs and the glut of web designers looking for work our options are WIDE OPEN. Internet usage is only going to increase – people are beginning to surf the web on their handhelds and cell phones, free Internet is becoming ubiquitous in many parts of the US… getting on board with this easy method of communication can only help our mission – to bring human-scale healthcare to the maximum number of people possible.
2. Natural medicine is often left out of traditional media like newspapers. This will sound familiar to anyone in a marginalized political or social movement. In many ways, the Internet has democratized media in a way I certainly couldn’t have predicted. Anyone can put their voice out there (mixed blessing, yes) and a group of dedicated, well-spoken folks with some tech expertise or help on that front can put their voice out there and get it both HEARD and RESPECTED. This can be a way into more traditional media as well, particularly if an online movement gains significant momentum.
3. Do we really want to leave it to the herbal viagrists? Now, my mother taught me to be positive and this is a negatively worded reason – but bear with me. At this point, Western medicine and people peddling “alternative” medicines of varying quality and efficacy dominate the health niche on the Internet. Thus, when a person types in “help with depression” they are likely to be pointed either in the direction of various and sundry pharmaceuticals or in the direction of whatever holistic-light-therapy-colloidial-moonstone remedy happens to be being promoted at the moment. Either of these options may be ok for some folks – but expanding the availability of excellent information on the Internet about natural healthcare expands the options accessed by average people. This should be our goal.
4. The creation of community. Unless you live in Portland or a similar town, you may be the only natural healthcare practitioner in your area – or at least one of very few. While the type of community created via the Internet can sometimes be less than healthy, the ability to make it positive is in the hands of individuals. By the creation of blogs, blog networks, websites, blogrolls, forums and other centers of communication we can network, share information and be supported by people who share our vision and values even when they’re 1,000 miles away.
5. Financial opportunities abound: Between blog monetization, creation of easily available affiliate programs, online sales of products and the ability to promote your brick-and-mortar business – the ability for natural health practitioners to make money using the Internet is significant. You don’t need to be a web design genius to use any of these features. Diversification of income streams is good for your long term stability and, thus, is good for your patients. No one is served by your going out of business.

So if you’re out there, friends, if you’re out there reading this and DYING to get off the computer – stop. Stop for a second and take a deep breath. Find a way to make friends with your computer and consider for a moment the infinite possibilities this whole new world represents. When you’re ready to get something going – drop me an email.

Eric